Xuan Yang and Shen Yan departed in a hurry. The villagers watched them from a distance with puzzled expressions, but none stepped forward to ask questions. They simply assumed the two experts had urgent business and did not wish to linger.
"Xuan Yang, are you alright?"
"I’m great."
Faced with Shen Yan’s stiff inquiry, Xuan Yang forced an exaggerated smile. It was so painful to look at that even Shen Yan couldn't help but advise, "If you're unhappy, don't force it."
"...I don't really care that much."
"..."
Shen Yan glanced at the stubborn Xuan Yang but didn't press further. Xuan Yang was speaking faster than usual, his voice laced with a forced indifference that made him seem incredibly unnatural. When Shen Yan suggested heading north to the nearest town to rest, Xuan Yang just nodded and agreed with a repetitive "Sure, sure," though it was unclear if he had even processed the suggestion.
Although he had found the task of escorting Wuyi home to be a nuisance, Shen Yan truly hadn't expected to encounter such a coincidence. He didn't know if this turn of events was a blessing or a curse, but if he could do it over again, perhaps he would have stopped Xuan Yang from making this trip.
Shen Yan had never pried much into Xuan Yang’s origins. He knew from Nie Shiyun that Xuan Yang was the offspring of a Phoenix from the Upper Realm and a member of the demon race from the cultivation world. Nie Shiyun had picked him up while he was still a demon beast egg. According to ancient records, the bloodlines of divine beasts were rare; even a half-blood should have been protected by their kin. It was almost impossible for one to be picked up by a human. However, considering that the cultivation world had long since lost contact with the Upper Realm, Shen Yan had merely speculated that the egg might have accidentally "fallen" from above. He had never imagined that Xuan Yang’s blood relatives actually existed within the cultivation world.
They traveled in silence. After returning to the town on their flying swords, Xuan Yang followed Shen Yan into an inn with unsteady steps.
Xuan Yang sat in an armchair, his hands bracing himself on either side of the seat as he stared blankly at the floor tiles.
"Spirit Dew Tea."
Shen Yan didn't know what to say, so he simply poured a cup of tea for Xuan Yang.
Xuan Yang took the cup and gulped it down like plain water.
"Things in the city are better after all. How did that stuff we just drank even have the nerve to call itself tea?" Xuan Yang let out a contemptuous huff. Shen Yan could see he was just putting on a brave front and gave him a worried glance.
Shen Yan was perfectly capable of sarcasm, but he was not skilled at comforting others.
For a long time, the room was so quiet that one could almost hear the faint sound of incense ash falling.
"When Wuyi wakes up and finds I left without saying goodbye, he’s definitely going to throw a tantrum," Xuan Yang said with a bitter smile.
Shen Yan hesitated for a moment before replying, "Children have short memories. He’ll get over it in two or three days."
"...Aren't you curious?" Xuan Yang suddenly asked.
"Curious about what?"
"About what happened back there... and all that."
Shen Yan replied calmly, "I could guess most of it from the conversation."
Xuan Yang kept his head down, his eyes fixed on his toes dangling in mid-air, swinging them slightly. Hearing Shen Yan’s answer, he let out a long "Mmm—" before saying, almost to himself, "You should ask me anyway. Ask me what my relationship is with that woman."
"..." Shen Yan paused for two seconds before asking as requested, "Fine. What is your relationship with that woman?"
"She’s my mother. In the biological sense. Because I was discarded while I was still in my egg, I never met her, nor did I ever hear anyone describe what she looked like," Xuan Yang began to recount his story. "But the bloodline resonance of demon beasts is truly a miraculous thing. The moment I saw her, I knew. She was the 'mother' who gave birth to me. What a redundant ability... Is that how she recognized me too?"
"I heard her talking to herself; she seemed to say you look very much like your father," Shen Yan said.
Xuan Yang let out an "Oh." "Is that so? I don't think I heard that. My head was buzzing the whole time. How embarrassing. Hah, if I had another chance, I could definitely have performed a bit 'better'..."
Xuan Yang instinctively wanted to return the malice he had received tenfold; perhaps that would make him seem less pathetic.
"I look like that man? Even though the Phoenix clan is known for their beauty, I don't want to look even slightly like that scoundrel father. They say sons are supposed to take after their mothers... but I don't want to be like that woman either. So petty, so destitute... I guess looking like this is fine..."
Xuan Yang rambled on, his topic gradually drifting. Shen Yan listened quietly without responding. He knew that these words weren't really meant for him; Xuan Yang simply needed an outlet for the stifling misery that had nowhere else to go.
"I still vaguely remember it, you know. Being thrown from a very high place while I was still in the egg. A normal egg would have shattered on the spot, right? Unfortunately, the egg of a divine beast is too resilient. I didn't break; instead, I bounced off a rock and into the water. The winter water was so, so cold. I could feel it even through the shell. A normal egg would have frozen to death, but I’m no ordinary bird! I just fell into a deep hibernation..."
"Nie Shiyun really hit the jackpot when he found me! But that guy does have a lot of good treasures. Otherwise, a normal cultivator wouldn't have been able to wake me up even after several years."
The unique "inheritance" of a divine beast, combined with the egg's extraordinary perception and tenacious vitality... without these, Xuan Yang would not have survived. But it was also because of these traits that the memory of being discarded before even hatching was permanently etched into his body.
"...If only my memories started from the second I hatched. I really didn't want to know all this extra stuff. Ah, but if that were the case, I’d probably have mistakenly thought that fellow Nie Shiyun was my dad. Just imagining myself calling him 'Father' makes me feel a bit sick."
Xuan Yang continued his chatter.
Despite his posturing, Xuan Yang felt a pang of misery in his chest. He had lived happily for twenty years and thought that even if he met his biological parents, he could just brush it off. But being looked at with such hatred by his own mother was far more painful than he had imagined.
"He isn't much different from a father to you, is he?" Shen Yan smiled.
Xuan Yang gave a muffled huff. "How could that be? All he does is work me like a slave and force me to cultivate, or else he won't give me snacks..."
As he spoke, Xuan Yang’s swinging legs slowly came to a halt. Although he had previously resolved not to go home for at least three to five years, a sudden wave of homesickness washed over him.
He missed that cave dwelling in Yunqing Pavilion a little.
Shen Yan remembered his previous attempt at patting Xuan Yang’s hair, which was supposed to be a comforting gesture. So, he repeated the action, gently ruffling Xuan Yang’s hair with his palm.
"Ugh..."
The feeling of his hair being messed up should have been annoying, but Xuan Yang found it strangely reassuring. Shen Yan wasn't good with gentle words, but his concern was tangibly transmitted through that palm.
"You've talked so much, you must be thirsty."
"...I'm fine." Despite his words, Xuan Yang obediently took the teacup handed to him.
Shen Yan sighed. "Since you've told me so much, I'll tell you a story too."
"Hmm? what story?" Xuan Yang asked, puzzled.
"My story," Shen Yan said in a level tone. "The things you were curious about before... about when I was a child..."
...
Forty years ago.
"This way, this way!"
"Ah! You're running too fast!"
"Heehee, let's see who gets there first!"
A group of young children played together by a stream, sweating profusely from the excitement.
"Shen Yan, why don't you stay at our house tonight?" During a break in the children's play, a female cultivator who had been watching them with a loving expression asked.
She was the mother of one of Shen Yan’s friends and had always looked after the children in the neighborhood. Several loose cultivators lived in these mountains; they were all people with low cultivation bases who lived peaceful, quiet lives. Many households had children, and since they often played together by the stream, the house closest to the water frequently hosted them for meals and rest.
"But, I didn't tell my parents I wouldn't be back today..." Shen Yan hesitated, but looking at his companions playing energetically by the river, he was clearly tempted.
The female cultivator knelt down, patted Shen Yan’s head, and said with a smile, "You haven't played enough yet, have you? It’s fine. I’ll send a spirit pigeon to give your parents a message. You can just go back tomorrow morning."
"Really?" Shen Yan’s eyes lit up, and a smile instantly broke across his face.
"Of course. I know your mother is pregnant again and you're about to become an older brother. Let her get some more rest."
Shen Yan nodded.
His companions were calling for him loudly from the distance, so he threw his worries to the back of his mind and ran back toward the stream.
This had been his unchanging, carefree daily life for several years.
That day, as usual, he played with his best friend until his strength was spent. He ate a delicious meal of spiritual food at their house and fell asleep snugly in a small bed with his friend.
"That's strange, husband. Why hasn't the spirit pigeon returned?"
After finishing the dishes, the female cultivator suddenly remembered that the spirit pigeon she had sent out earlier had not come back. Usually, they would have received a reply from the couple saying "Sorry for the trouble" by now, but today was unusual.
"That spirit pigeon was bought cheap at the market. I told you it wasn't reliable. Maybe it got lost?"
"What are you saying? It came back perfectly fine the last few times." Hearing her husband criticize her choice of pigeon, the woman was immediately displeased. "Then it's fine. Maybe they kept it and gave it a good meal. A bit of neighborly courtesy."
"Are you comparing their child to our pigeon?" The woman was amused and gave the man a sidelong glance. Their conversation drifted further away, eventually turning to the fact that the other couple was having another child. With a mutual understanding, they headed into their bedroom, and the matter of the spirit pigeon was temporarily forgotten.
The next day, Shen Yan said goodbye to his friend, and the two agreed to play again in a few days.
There were several paths leading from the foot of the mountain to the halfway point. Shen Yan went up and down them constantly and knew the routes by heart. Although the vegetation was thick, the spiritual energy here wasn't particularly dense, so there were no dangerous demon beasts or spiritual plants. It was perfectly safe for a child to walk alone.
But today, the mountainside was quieter than usual. There wasn't even the sound of birds chirping in the morning.
Shen Yan felt something was off, but having lived on this safe mountain since he was small, he was somewhat dull to danger. Most of the loose cultivators here had mediocre talent and didn't seek the Great Dao or fame. This mountain wasn't a treasure trove either, so the people living here rarely had conflicts.
*Are my parents out?*
Shen Yan struggled over the last small hill. He could see their house from a distance. Usually, by this time of the morning, his father would be practicing his sword outside, and his mother might be busy in the small courtyard. However, ever since his parents told him he was getting a brother or sister, his mother hadn't been doing as much housework.
*She’s probably resting in the room,* Shen Yan thought as he jogged toward the silent house.
"Father, Mother, I'm back!"
Usually, when he shouted like that, the couple would come out to greet him. Although her large belly made it difficult, his mother would still pick Shen Yan up every time, scolding him for bothering the neighbors again and telling him to bring them gifts the next time he went down the mountain.
"...?"
Even though he had reached the door, no one came out. Furthermore, there was no sound of movement inside the house; it was deathly silent.
He couldn't see it clearly from outside the courtyard, but as Shen Yan reached the door and looked down, he saw a dark red liquid seeping through the crack under the door. Like a miniature version of the winding stream at the foot of the mountain, it extended from inside the house to the outside, and it had clearly already coagulated.
*Red... is that blood?*
Shen Yan stood frozen. His first thought was—*Did my brother or sister get born? But Father and Mother said it would be several more months!*
Shen Yan stood on his tiptoes and knocked on the door in annoyance, but the door wasn't bolted. It swung inward with a light touch.
"You liars! You said I'd be the first one to see... the..."
"..."
The wooden door creaked as it slowly opened with its own momentum.
What left the young Shen Yan frozen in place was a cruel scene that no child should ever witness.
"Ah..."
Shen Yan’s limbs began to shake violently. In an instant, his legs turned to jelly, unable to support his weight, and he collapsed backward.
His father’s corpse lay at the front, as if he had tried to shield his mother, but it had clearly been in vain. That reassuring, sturdy chest was now motionless, his throat slashed open, his eyes staring hollowly at the ceiling.
Beyond his body, his mother lay prone on the floor, her entire body soaked in congealed blood. Her posture suggested she had been trying to protect something, but that faint wish had clearly not been granted even in death. The wound on her abdomen cut across her body, and the remains of the unformed infant had been discarded carelessly to the side.
"..."
The shock of the scene was too great. For a moment, Shen Yan lost his sense of smell. The pungent stench of corpses and blood didn't hit him until his brain slowly processed what had happened; then, it surged up all at once like a long-suppressed explosion. Before he could scream, stomach acid rushed up his throat faster than any sound.
These were actually details he only gradually remembered after dreaming about them repeatedly over the following years. At the time, Shen Yan didn't even remember how he had crawled down the mountain alone to find help after vomiting everything in his stomach in a daze.
By the time he lost consciousness and woke up again, three days had passed.
The cultivator couple who had hosted him the night before took him in and set up graves for his parents. The tombstones were merely for psychological comfort; it was only a matter of time before the bodies of cultivators who had lost their essence withered and dissipated.
He heard that the scene had been truly horrific; even the adults couldn't stop themselves from vomiting several times. This incident left the nearby loose cultivators in a state of panic because they all knew the couple had been kind-hearted and shouldn't have had any enemies. Furthermore, there was nothing of value in their home, yet they had been slaughtered for no reason. The loose cultivators, who had thought they could live safely by not competing with others, became uneasy. Many moved away overnight, leaving the mountain.
From then on, no one dared to mention anything about family in front of Shen Yan. The cultivators who remained nearby treated him very kindly, but they watched helplessly as the once innocent and adorable child slowly grew into a gloomy, humorless youth.
The couple who took him in hoped he could forget the past and live a good life, but Shen Yan couldn't do it. Despite being repeatedly told not to pursue the killer—as the opponent was clearly someone they couldn't afford to provoke—Shen Yan still went everywhere to ask questions, inquiring in the city and desperately trying to recall the details of that day to find any clues. At first, the couple only felt pity for him, but as he became more obsessed and actually started finding some information, they began to feel afraid.
They had taken Shen Yan in out of kindness and were willing to raise him as their own, but if Shen Yan’s actions brought trouble upon them, their family wouldn't be able to bear it.
Shen Yan knew that behind his back, the couple had argued countless times because of him. The woman felt that as long as they kept a close eye on him, he would forget his hatred and slowly find peace. The man felt that he would eventually bring disaster upon them and complained that his wife was being too emotional, bringing trouble into their home.
Finally, one day, Shen Yan saved up enough money for his journey. He left all the money except for his travel expenses on the couple's table. Following the meager bits of information he had gathered, the ten-year-old Shen Yan left the place where the loose cultivators had lived peacefully for decades and set out on his own.
"I was probably about the same age as you are now..."
"Ugh... I-I'm already over twenty..."
"Oh, right. The same age as you look," Shen Yan corrected himself.
"Waaa... waaaaaah..."
Shen Yan watched helplessly as Xuan Yang, who had been sobbing quietly, finally broke into a loud wail. He patted the boy's back. "I didn't even cry. What are you crying for?"
"How can I not cry! *Hic!* This is too tragic... waah..." Xuan Yang cried until he was hiccuping. "You must have cried so hard back then, right?"
Shen Yan froze. "...No."
"How is that possible!" Xuan Yang’s eyes were red from crying. Even being looked at with hatred by his biological mother hadn't made him cry out of grievance, but now tears were rolling down his face in large droplets. Compared to Shen Yan’s past, he had merely been abandoned by his parents! It wasn't tragic at all.
"Maybe it was because I had vomited everything out and my body was dehydrated, so no tears could come out?" Shen Yan said casually.
Thinking back, he really hadn't shed a single tear. At first, it was indeed dehydration, but after he woke up, he seemed to have become a different person overnight. He realized that tears were useless, and from then on, he focused entirely on the path of seeking his enemies.
On the long road to revenge, he had no time to cry. By the time he finally achieved his vengeance, he had even forgotten what it felt like to be dominated by sorrow. He couldn't even clearly remember his parents' faces; he only felt as if he had been liberated from a heavy shackle at that moment.
At that time, Shen Yan hadn't cried; instead, he had smiled from the bottom of his heart at the scene. To an outsider, it must have been a truly bizarre sight.
"You're so stubborn...! Th-then just consider these tears as me crying for you... waah..." Xuan Yang didn't believe what Shen Yan said, but he didn't want to argue about right or wrong regarding such a sad matter.
"Crying for me..." Shen Yan was silent for a moment, then gave a light chuckle. "I suppose that works."
Xuan Yang couldn't stop sobbing. While crying, he grumbled, "Don't look at me, my face looks terrible right now," and turned his head away. Shen Yan walked to Xuan Yang’s side and gently pulled him into a hug. Xuan Yang stiffened for a moment but soon allowed himself to lean against Shen Yan.
This was both crying for Shen Yan and a quiet mixture of Xuan Yang’s own grievances. The facade he had maintained since leaving that house collapsed along with this legitimate excuse. At this moment, even he couldn't distinguish which side the tears were for as they soaked a small patch of the fabric on Shen Yan’s shoulder.
Xuan Yang’s body shook with sobs. Shen Yan had never experienced this feeling before. This was the trust and reliance Xuan Yang was showing him, and it was the first time someone had said they would feel sorrow "on his behalf."
He awkwardly patted Xuan Yang’s back, one stroke at a time. In his memories, which had faded until almost nothing remained, his parents seemed to have done the same when he was upset.
Shen Yan’s embrace was cold, not warm at all. But for some reason, Xuan Yang liked it very much.
Xuan Yang thought to himself that this was the first and last time; he could never cry so embarrassingly again.
With that slow, steady patting, Xuan Yang’s sobbing gradually ceased. After an unknown amount of time, silence returned to the room.
Looking down, Shen Yan saw that Xuan Yang had likely cried himself out. Combined with the mental strain of the day, he had drifted into a heavy, half-asleep state.
Shen Yan felt a bit of regret. Back when he was being hunted, he had only given Nie Shiyun a brief summary of how his family had been killed by enemies. Recounting the full details felt like digging up his past, vulnerable self and laying it bare, so he had never done it. He didn't want to see the pity or sighs of others.
*To have said so much nonsense to a child...* Shen Yan thought. He had really stayed with this person for too long; he was starting to act unlike himself.
*Just this once.*
Shen Yan cautioned himself. He picked Xuan Yang up and placed him back on the bed in the room. He decided that tomorrow he would persuade Xuan Yang to return to Yunqing Pavilion. It seemed Xuan Yang actually wanted to go back; he just needed a graceful way out.
With that, his mission would finally come to an end.
***
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Transmigrated into a Total Shou Novel as a Cannon Fodder, but Ended Up 1v1-ing the Male Lead | Chapter 145 | Tears for Another | Novela.app | Novela.app
